Does Driving change our morality?

Hmmm… I wonder if our norms are behaviour are sometimes suspended when we get behind a wheel? What do you think?

Well my argument goes something like this. In general we as human beings  are civil and courteous (I admit they are my words not necessarily yours) when we interact with individuals, when we can see them, when we can establish eye contact I believe that we are generally reasonable, pretty well behaved and respectful.

Now when I am in a car and need to get somewhere, when there is a queue of traffic I want to sneak in at the front, I don’t want to wait. When someone else wants to push in I have ( in the past)  made it as difficult as possible for them to do this. My blood pressure rises, my voice goes into ‘telling off’ mode, everyone else is to blame. Do you get the picture? Can you identify with this?

One of my aims is to be as consistent as possible in  the way I behave, to live out my faith in a congruent manner. I have been challenged recently about how that plays out in my driving. Just because they are in a metal box and can’t speak back to me should I treat them differently compared to if I met them in the street?

Many of us seek to

love your neighbor as yourself – Matthew 19:19

so what does this mean for my driving habits…….

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Surprising Leadership

Now there are some days  ( not very often) when I am really surprised – in the true sense of the word ‘surprise’.

Working for a larger ‘corporate’ cynicism can creep in when it comes to the walking the talk on leadership. The leaders that succeed are not necessarily the ones that follow the ‘good leadership manual’. I was warmed today to receive an email from our CEO. Among the state of the nation communication was an emphasis on leadership:

Leadership is all about others. It’s about service, care and creating a sense of belonging for others. I envisage a model of leadership where leaders are highly conscious about self, about life and universal truth and wisdom, who bring an intention to their jobs of service and care for others. If you have an attitude of compassion and humility, then people will give back massively to the leader. (Tex Gunning)

Now that is a radical take on leadership from where my company has been. It is inspiring. It resonates with my values and I think it taps into real timeless  truth about good leadership.

It reminds me of a verse in Matthew (23:11)

The greatest among you will be your servant. 12For whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted.

And also:

For he who is least among you all—he is the greatest (Luke 9:47)

Well….. what do you think?

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Bad people and me

On the way in to work this morning I heard a distressing story of the stoning of a 13 year old girl in Somalia. She was buried with her head poking out above ground and stoned. Evidently she had been gang raped.

My initial reaction was how could this Islamic miltant group do such a thing. It is just ‘evil’.

Yes it is evil. And in my view it is is right to condemn such behaviour. It is also true that aspects of their behaviour are manifested in me – and probably most of us. What needed to be true for them to do such a thing? Was it a unquestioning sense of being right? A revelling in power and authority? A sense of doing God’s will? All of which I’m guilty of.

This was a terrible act. It is right to be disgusted and pained. There is a danger of feeling self-righteous… however the evil we recognise in them is present to some degree in ourselves, is it not?

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Light and Shadow

Light and Shadow

I was walking recently in the mountains and the sun was shining at an angle on the hillside opposite – casting shadows of the low drystone walls, trees & barns transforming what might have been a fairly uninteresting uniform hillside into a picture full of texture and beauty.

A couple of days earlier I was browsing though my son’s book on digital photography. It has 2 shots of the same scene. One shot on a cloudy day and one on a sunny day with strong shadows.

For me, life is a little like the hillside or the attractive photo. It has light and shadow. Often we focus on the light, though without shadow the light wouldn’t be meaningful. Yet how often do I expect life to be in with dark – to be all light and no shadow. Shadow for me represents the difficult times, the sufferings in life, the pain, yet without it we would not appreciate the light and we would not become the people that we can be.

In the Bible there is a metaphor of gold being refined (purified) by fire. (Zechariah 13:9 ) Fire though painful and difficult brings around the transformation of the impure Gold into something pure and of value. As a Christian I am to expect suffering… though often in practice I expect to avoid it!

So this challenges me to view what I call difficulties in a different light, to ask myself if I can appreciate them (if not at the time then after) and not to ask God to teach me though them.

What could you learn from your ‘shadows’ by looking at them from a different angle?

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